Good morning, K-Mart Shoppers. I see that I have not visited you here for quite some time. I have much to share, but each time that I plan to log on and do so, I realize that I’ve failed to mention a few sort-of major things that are going on and so I log back off, failing to post anything. First and foremost, it would appear that I am having a baby. According to medical professionals, this baby will be a boy. According to my pregnancy app, this boy will make an appearance in or around 58 days from today. As I waddle about, fretting over the big stuff and the small stuff, it occasionally hits me that these medical professionals and that pregnancy app may actually not be a part of some grand conspiracy. It may actually be true that I’m having a baby. This is, all at once, incredible and exciting and breathtaking. It’s also terrifying and grey hair-producing and exhausting. What it isn’t is miraculous, or at least not any more so than any conception, gestation or birth. I can have babies. The proof is in the messy-haired blonde I just peeked at, snoring softly, Abby Cadabby tucked under her arm. I can also lose babies. Unfortunately, we all can. But it isn’t more than what it is. Or at least this is what I will tell you that I believe. I don’t know if it is my largely-Irish DNA or the fact that I was born under the sign of Virgo (or the fact that I used to play truly insane amounts of Tetris), but for me, things must make sense. The puzzle pieces must fit in order to weave a cohesive story. In terms of this one, this Who Gets To Have a Baby and When and How Much Grief Must Be Endured In the Process, I am waving the white flag. This one doesn’t make sense and it never will. One trip to any grocery store in America will shatter your belief that only seemingly “worthy” people get to parent. I read an essay² this morning, written by a mother who was stuck in limbo as her daughter endured diagnostic test after diagnostic test, and this is how it ended:

This is not the other shoe dropping. It is not tragic irony or doom or punishment for our interpretive failures. It is life, with loss woven into its very fabric. That’s just what there is.

So, I’m still here. And I’ll try to visit more often. In part because I really need to talk to you about Heelys and the fact that they are, surely and truly, going to be the death of what makes this country great endurable. So, I’ll see you soon.

Last night, out of the clear, blue sky – as if there were such a thing – my daughter said to me, “So… your dad’s invisible, right?” I wasn’t sure how to respond. My dad died three years ago but for much of my life he was, essentially, invisible. But she wasn’t speaking figuratively – She’s 4. I told her that my dad is not alive anymore and that many believe that people who are not alive anymore go to a beautiful place called Heaven. I said that those people could think about us and that we could think about them but that we could not see or speak with one another in the same way that she and I see and speak with one another. I told her that we could still think about and love one another. What I didn’t tell her is that I really don’t know what I believe happens to us after we die. (How could I tell her that?) She said that I should paint a picture of my dad and hang it on the wall so that I can see him while I’m thinking about him. I told her that this was a fabulous idea. And then she said, ‘Which one of us will be invisible first, me or you?” I told her that it would probably be me. I tried to make this sound, in some way, light and cheery. She played along for a few seconds and then burst into tears. She sobbed and sobbed and, between sobs, said, “I just feel like I need to cry about that!!” While I held and rocked her (and tried not to lose my mind because of the sadness of it all) I remembered the first time I learned that my mom would, someday, die. I remember feeling that I would never be able to carry on – that life could never again be normal.

I was a child who had a healthy fear of strangers (thanks in part to the man who tried to coax my sister and I off of a city bus and to his home) and an unhealthy fear of impending war (thanks in part to being born in 1975 and also in part to the song, “Russians.” Thanks a lot, Sting.). I was afraid of loud noises, unusual weather, darkness… But mostly, I was afraid of being apart from my mom. I knew that one day Averi would start to understand that living is not a permanent state, but I was hoping that I had a few more years before she would start to ask questions. Who was I kidding? Last month she was waiting for her new baby sister, her “Halloween Surprise.” This month she’s saying that she’d really like to have a baby brother or sister…someday.

{I was planning to write a brand-new Christmas post today but I couldn’t think of anything to say. And then I decided to re-read this post, which I wrote a year and a day ago. It still sums up my feelings about the season. Watching the proverbial sugarplums dancing in my daughter’s head still makes my heart sing. The year has been hard and there is a part of my family that is missing but the little girl who remains is purely delightful. Happy Holidays!}

The Christmas season is upon us. And when I say “upon” I mean sitting on top of us and kicking us in the face with its big, sooty Santa boots. For the past 10 years or so, Christmas has seemed like something to get through. The magic of my youth, when I would wait for the Sears catalog to arrive and then circle, dog-ear and then highlight (just to be extra sure) the 978 toys that I wanted, faded long ago. The enjoyment of the lights and songs and spirit of the season gave way to feeling taxed and maxed out, not just mentally and physically but also from the perspective of the kind people at Mastercard. How many Christmas cookies can one person eat (a lot) and how many pairs of Dearfoam slippers does one person need (none, thanks)? In short, I started to be the Grinchy person who was dimming the lights and hiding in the bathroom when I saw the carolers coming.

All of that has changed this year. My usual black on black on black clothing ensembles have been accented by a red scarf and red Pumas, and eggnog lattes are on my mind just about 24/7. Why the change of heart? It is all the fault of a certain blonde-haired maniac in a Pull-Up and footie pajamas. My daughter is 3 1/2 this year and the spirit of the season is in her eyes, in her silly Christmas dances and on her tongue as she talks to Santa in her sleep.

Because I’m so progressive insane I feel a little bit strange about lying to my child about Santa (although I have no issue whatsoever telling her that I’m eating raisins when she catches me eating candy). It’s hard to imagine the crestfallen face that I will have to endure when she finds out the truth. Nonetheless, we did the big trek out to sit on the Man in Red’s lap and let me tell you, she was elated! She was practically bouncing off the ceiling for days, telling and retelling every detail, every moment of their time together. I never expected such a truly, genuinely giddy response. And then last week we were lying in bed, reading bedtime stories. She had chosen Babar’s Rescue from the library. It is a tale of a camping trip gone awry. Babar is kidnapped by a pack of stripe-eared elephants and his daughter must save him. After the story I asked my daughter if she would like to rescue her daddy. She replied, “Yes! But I don’t know how to get there!!” She looked absolutely terrified and it was clear that she thought her daddy had been captured by the stripe-eared elephants and was being fed poisoned Watermelon Smoothies with Babar. After calming her down I realized something: Christmas is made for 3-year-olds. It’s not for 34-year-old curmudgeons like me. The imagination and the promise of hope and miracles are so alive in a preschooler. How could I deprive her of the full Christmas experience? In other words, my little Grinch heart grew three sizes that day.

So pass me an eggnog latte and hack off a slice of that Yule Log. I have lights to hang. I have cookies to bake. I have a 3-foot tall stocking to fill.

As for Santa laughing at her when she nervously told him that she wanted “a toy” for Christmas? I’ll deal with him on December 26th.

My daughter had a little Halloween party at her preschool today and she was so excited about it that she could hardly sleep last night. She got to wear a costume to school and the parents came to the last half hour and joined the kids for a little buffet (My contribution sucked, but that’s neither here nor there. I brought string cheese. Another mom brought string cheese that looked like dismembered fingers. DAMN!). This is the first year that she has had any opinion about her costume and unfortunately the opinion has been changing every few days since early September. I thought we had settled on The Cat in The Hat but this morning she insisted on wearing the Captain Feathersword costume that we bought for her 6-year old boy cousin to potentially wear to the Wiggles concert last summer. It’s too big and it’s sort of boyish but she really, really wanted to wear it and she did look pretty darn cute. When I got to school I saw that the other little girls were dressed in little girl costumes: a princess, a mermaid, and a kitty cat witch. I left feeling a little sad that my kid didn’t want to be something cute and girly. I have no interest in perpetuating the gender stereotypes and forcing her into a box and I can’t stand Barbies and Disney princess obsessions but I can count on one hand how many times I have been able to get her hair into a ponytail. And all of those little plastic, Goody barrettes? The yellow ducks, the red bows, etc… Nope. But she’s her and I love her. A lot.

So as I was pondering this hair tragedy and the bizarre little peanut to whom I gave birth, I came across this photo online:

This is little 9-year old Noah Cyrus, Miley’s sister.

Ahoy there, me hearties. After seeing this, that polyester Captain Feathersword costume looks more beautiful to me than any zillion dollar couture gown in the entire world. Rock on, Junior Feathersword. In 6 years, and in 16 years, you will not be wearing a dress this short. Not under my roof.

My child was a big drooler. I kept an extra shirt in my purse until about 3 months ago. And she’s 3 1/2. When I realized that the same shirt had been in my purse for about 6 weeks and was covered in lint and other bottom-of-purse debris, I switched it out for an extra pair of pants because we were in the midst of potty training by that point. Those same pants remained for several months and I eventually took them out during one of my intensive purse-cleaning sessions. That move may have been slightly premature…

We went to the park on Sunday. And I would like to make a confession here: I do not enjoy going to the park. I really and truly would like to be a mother who enjoys the park but I am not. Parks are full of germs, weird kids (and even weirder parents), pot-smoking teenagers and wood chips. I hate wood chips. They stick to my clothes, they get into my flip-flops and they seem an ideal environment to step on an uncapped hypodermic syringe. Hate ’em. So I try to avoid trips to the park. But sometimes (while high on coffee) I say, “Maybe we’ll go to the park later!” And because elephants and 3-year olds never forget, I find myself, several hours later, picking wood chips off of my sweater while I sniff the air and scan the bushes for the teenager with the 7-Up can pipe. The trip always ends in tears or injury (or both) and I always leave saying, “Never again…”

But on Sunday we did go to the park. And here’s how it went down: It was sunny when we arrived but became cloudy and frigidly cold within moments of our arrival. A foreshadowing of what was to come? Perhaps. My daughter went down the slide about 87 times and then some really strange, older boys arrived on the scene. I tried to get her interested in the swings but she was interested in the strange, older boys. Great. I watched her like a hawk as she went up the ladder and down the slide and then suddenly she stopped. Right as the words, “Oh, no! I’m goin’ pee-pee!” were coming out of her mouth, I saw the horseshoe of urine darkening her pants. Damn! I removed her from the play structure and brought her into the creepy, concrete bathroom. It was then that I remembered my reckless decision to remove the spare pants from my purse. Oh, well. I’ll just carry her, naked-bottomed, to the car. I’ll crank the heat, put my jacket on her lap and get her home. Oh, no, no, no. The pants were removed and then she took off like a shot for the play structure. Apparently she thought she might be able to continue playing, sans pants. And she stuck to her naked guns on this for quite some time. I had to drag her out of the park, kicking and screaming, past the weird kids and a very disturbing Vietnam vet who materialized out of the bushes to see what the fuss was about. Once I got her into the car I tried to explain that it wasn’t anybody’s fault and that it was really too bad but that she didn’t make it to the bathroom in time and we needed to leave. Through huge sobs and gasping for air she managed, “But I was really close to making it in time and I want to play for 5 more minutes!” I wanted very, very badly to say, “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, Kid.” But I didn’t think it would help the situation very much so I resisted the urge.

So once again, spare pants are collecting lint on the bottom of my purse and once again, I am swearing off of parks. Like the plague that I know them to be.

Today is a school holiday. I had forgotten about this until we decided to go out for breakfast and I noticed that every table had a school-aged kid or two at it. Well, almost every table. One table had an older couple who seemed pretty darn irritated by all of the youthful exuberance. It reminded me of my early days of traveling with an infant. And then of my more recent days of traveling with a toddler. And of my current life of traveling with a preschooler. For some reason I always get stuck sitting next to the jerky business traveler. Over breakfast I started thinking that it would be nice to have a t-shirt for my daughter to wear to lighten the mood on our next airplane trip. So I decided to design one!

We might still get stuck next to the gaseous, self-important baby-hater but next time my kid will have a cute shirt to spill her apple juice on.

I’m confused. How in the name of Greg/Sam, Anthony, Murray, and Jeff has my child been exposed to the likes of Raffi without my consent or knowledge? Prior to this week I was vaguely aware of Raffi’s existence but did not know anything about him. I had heard of the song, “Baby Beluga” but did not know the tune nor did I care to. Imagine my surprise when my kid picks up a Raffi concert DVD at the library and says, “Let’s get this ‘Waffy’ movie, Mom!”. I added it to our pile of goods and didn’t think much of it until last night when she asked to watch it. I put the DVD on and went back to my magazine. Sweet Jesus! What the hell is going on here? I can appreciate that the music is positive and soothing but all of the children in the crowd seem to be drugged and why in God’s name are they all wearing pinafores and/or suspenders? Is this the 1980s or the 1880s?

I decided to do some research. Okay fine, I Googled him while eating an english muffin… He appears to be a doe-eyed Armenian man with a penchant for using a banana as a telephone. And the kids eat it up with a spoon! I had seen his picture before but I think I had mistaken him for the prop comic Gallagher. Without the hair, there is a resemblance. And I think they both wear black, pleated pants. So in that way, he also resembles Paula Poundstone. Which would be Strike Two for Raffi. If anybody’s keeping track, the Banana Phone was Strike One.

So, I still don’t know how the hell my daughter knew about Raffi if I didn’t. We spend all of our time together and she only started Preschool last week. My sister suggested that there may have been some playground peer pressure at work and that Raffi is only the beginning. That terrifies me. If Raffi is the gateway drug to Hannah Montana, please bogart that Banana Phone. If you see me or mine on the playground, don’t pass it over to us. We don’t want a hit.